Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of August 14-20, 2017. Football finally returns this week, at 2:30 PM Friday with the opening match of the Bundesliga season. And the Brewers seem to be in their summer swoon. Still, there's a lot of time for some good movies, and I've used my good taste to select a bunch that I know you'll like. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
On Monday, TCM is honoring Vanessa Redgrave with 24 hours of her movies. One that I don't think I've recommended before is Behind the Mask, at noon. This one, her film debut, has her playing alongside her real-life father Michael; she plays Pamela Gray, daughter of noted surgeon Sir Arthur Gray. Pamela, meanwhile, is engaged to young doctor Philip (Tony Britton), who is studying under Sir Arthur to become a surgeon. Complicating matters is the fact that Philip spends some time looking after one of his colleagues, who has a drugs problem. This leads to the neglect of one of Philip's patients, who dies as a result. Oops. It could even threaten to bring down poor Sir Arthur's career. To be honest, the movie probably wouldn't be very well remembered if it weren't for the presence of the two Redgraves.
Over on StarzEncore Westerns, I'd like to Mention The Lonely Man, which you can catch at 9:47 AM Tuesday. Jack Palance plays Jacob, a gunfighter who's getting on in years and who has decided he'd like to settle down and live out the remainder of his days in peace. Except of course that nobody really wants him. Jacob sees his son Riley (Anthony Perkins), who resents Dad because Dad basically abandoned him and Mom, and Mom died young as a result. And of course no townsfolk want Jacob around; they'd apparently seen enough westerns to know that gunfighters have a reputation and people follow them. Eventually they end up on a ranch run by Jacob's old girlfriend, while Riley finds himself drawn to her. Of course, that's not the end of the story as a man from Jacob's gunfighting past, King Fisher (Neville Brand) shows up with some scores to settle. This is one of those westerns that's more about the characters than the action.
Those wacky Catholics have a patron saint for everything. St. Joseph of Cupertino, for example, is the patron saint of both airline pilots and poor students. His story was told in the movie The Reluctant Saint, which TCM will be showing at 10:00 PM Tuesday as part of a day of Ricardo Montalbán movies. Joseph is actually played by Maximilian Schell. He's a simpleton (actually, he probably had some mental illness causing those visions, combined with ergotism) who can't do anything right, but eventually his family is able to get an uncle who's a monk at a Franciscan monastery in Italy to take him in and work the stables. (Montalbán plays Don Raspi, one of the head monks at the monastery.) The monks put up with him, but the bishop (Akim Tamiroff) visits and is so impressed with Giuseppe's devotion and simplicity of faith. Eventually Giuseppe gets ordained. And then he has more visions and starts levitating during prayer. At least, that's the Catholics' story and they're sticking to it; it's that levitation that made him a natural choice to become the patron saint of pilots.
On Wednesday, we get a whole day of Elvis Presley movies on what I think is the 40th anniversary of his death. One of his films that I don't think I've mentioned before is Kid Galahad, which will be on TCM at midnight Thursday, or 11:00 PM Wednesday LFT. Elvis plays Walter, a recently demobbed GI (art imitating life) who returns to his home town and gets a job as a sparring partner at a boxing camp. He's actually good at it, which lead's the camp's owner Willy (Gig Young) to believe that Walter should go into the ring for real. Of course, Walter starts to show promise, but there's a problem in that Willy has relations with the Mob (well, who in boxing doesn't), and the mob eventually decides that they want to use Walter for their own ends, meaning Walter will have to throw a fight. Elvis sings some songs, if not as many as in later movies. Charles Bronson plays Walter's trainer, and Lola Albright returns from Blue Hawaii as the love interest.
In and around all of the stars on TCM, StarzEncore classics has gotten the trights to a bunch of the classic James Bond movies (ie the Connery and Moore era) and have been running them relatively frequently. So I'll just mention here that among the Bond movies on offer this week are From Russia With Love (perhaps my favorite) at 10:39 PM Tuesday, and Goldfinger at 10:48 PM Thursday.
On Thursday, TCM is giving us 24 hours of Rosalind Russell. Once again I'll mention a movie I don't think I've recommended before; this time that's What a Woman! which will be on at 8:00 PM. This time, Russell plays Carol, a literary agent for a popular but reclusive author – indeed, she's only had correspondence with him and not actually seen him. The guy's latest book, is a hit, and there's talk of making a movie out of it and even casting the author in a role. So Carol has to go find the author, bring him to the big city, and convince him to do the part. However, it turns out that the author is college professor Cobb (Willard Parker), who is nothing like the characters he writes about or the putative back-story anybody would have written for an author of such books. But of course, Carol is going to fall in love along the way despite showing no interest at first. Russell made a lot of movies with that formula. Complicating matters is magazine writer Henry (Brian Aherne), who is trying to do a story on Carol.
If you want a relatively recent movie, you could do worse than to catch Sneakers, which for some bizarre reason is on Starz Comedy several times this week, including 4:14 AM and 2:17 PM Friday. Robert Redford plays Marty Bishop, a former 60s radical and early computer hacker who, 20 years on, is running a computer security company specializing in high-end cybersecurity. However, the government has figured out his true identity, and use this to blackmail Marty into stealing a decryption device that the Russians are building that could break all known encryption. (Nowadays, the government just wants to make strong encryption illegal, the f***ers.) Marty and his offbeat employees (played by, among others, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, and River Phoenix), go on a mission to get into the facility and steal the device, only to find out that they're getting into a mission that's more than they bargained for. An entertaining movie, although of course technology has advanced quite a bit in the past quarter century.
Back on TCM, they're spending Friday running the movies of Rod Taylor, concluding at 4:00 AM Saturday with The Deadly Trackers. Taylor gets to play a bad guy here, this being Frank Brand, who robs a bank in a small Texas town. So of course the town's sheriff Kilpatrick (Richard Harris; how he ended up in a western is a wonder) wants to chase down Brand and bring him to justice, although heretofre he's always been known as a sheriff who uses extremely peaceful means. This time is different because Brand killed Kilpatrick's wife and daughter, so Kilpatrick snapped and is extremely desirous of getting Brand and his gang. And Brand is able to cross the Rio Grande into Mexico, which means that he should be more or less safe, at least legally. Kilpatrick, unsurprisingly, crosses into Mexico and uses extralegal means to get Brand's gang members one by one. Mexican law officer Gutierrez (Al Lettieri), for his part, doesn't like any of this.
Baby, Take a Bow was on FXM Retro once last month, and I got to watch it. It's on again this week, at 6:00 AM Saturday. Shirley Temple, in one of her earliest movies, plays Shirley, the daughter of Eddie (James Dunn). Eddie is an ex-con who's trying to make good, having married Kay (Claire Trevor) on getting out of prison. Several years pass, which is where we see little Shirley. Eddie is working as a chauffeur, and trying to get a job with the same wealthy man for his fellow ex-con Larry. But Eddie's past intervenes when a third ex-con decides to steal an expensive string of pearls from Eddie's boss. A nasty insurance investigator bent on sending Eddie back up the river just knows Eddie is involved, and is going to prove it. Of course, Eddie isn't involved, but the actual thief tricked little Shirley into taking the beads off him until things cool down. Shirley is as charming as ever, and this one has some surprisingly dark moments, including a climax with the actual thief absconding with Shirley.
Saturday's star on TCM is Angela Lansbury. One of her movies that doesn't show up quite so often is The World of Henry Orient, which will be on at noon Saturday. Of course, this isn't Lansbury's movie. Henry Orient, played by Peter Sellers, is a concert pianist living in Manhattan and romantically attracted to Stella (Paula Prentiss). He's really more of a playboy, though, going through one woman after another. However he's not prepared for the next two young ladies about to come into his life. Val and Marian are teenagers at a posh New York boarding school, and Val develops a crush on Henry. So she decides she's going to pursue him, and ropes Marian into following her in her pursuit, even though the two aren't even of the age of consent. And needless to say it's going to complicate Henry's life in all sorts of ways. As for Lansbury, she plays Val's mother, and you can see from her why Val turned out to be such a mess.